


Timbuktu

by butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)



Series: Cities Headcanons [11]
Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: Africa, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people forget Timbuktu exists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timbuktu

Some people forget Timbuktu exists. They think she’s some kind of mythical place like Atlantis, not a real physical place, not a City of flesh and blood.

But Atlantis exists and so does she.

It wasn’t always like this. Once she was the Capital of a sprawling empire, camel caravans that spanned the Sahara and beyond, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. She was a centre of learning, gathering Islamic scholars and manuscripts from distant lands and bringing them into her fold. She was a refuge from the perils of the desert, and she welcomed travelers into her prosperous home with open arms. She was a city of gold and salt and slaves, and she was known and respected.

That time, her golden years, are long gone. Now she is the back of beyond, the place that people think of when they say ‘the middle of nowhere’. She’s a backwater, neglected by the scholars she once loved and only visited by those who seek out what she once was, not what she is. The desert is closing in around her, and instead of safety she now has strife.

But she has secrets, to go with the wisdom that only comes with age, and maybe some of those would do better to stay buried. For her, for her people, for everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> I pointed out that we had a lack of African Cities in the Paris Burning 'verse, and that we could do better.
> 
> I wrote this to (start to) fix that.


End file.
